Sat'day Night In The City of The Dead

A good old fashioned stomper! It's about going out and getting 'banjoed'  - 1950's imagery meets city slicker sleaze - great bit of harmonica - an instrument rarely linked with Utravox! As Mr Zappa once said 'Blow your harmonica son!'

Sorry  - couldn't resist the link! Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention -   Trouble Comin' Every Day - 1965

More of Zappa later! This song was written in 1965 - most of it is very, very relevant NOW in the UK and America.  If you can get past the 60's argot and 'hepcat' slang - this song is still vitally relevant.  The 'owned' media, race hatred, inner city riots, television news - it's all there - the sobering thought is, a lot of the social problems Zappa is describing are still with us after half a century!

BLOW YOUR HARMONICA SON!


This brief diversion into Mr Zappa's back catalogue will serve as a nice contrast to the next part of our Ultravox (!) story - the second album, the 'punk' album, the uncomprimising, harder edged and rawer than the first - 'HA! HA! HA!'

'Ha! Ha! Ha!'

An exclamation of amusement - a 'xerox' version of the Beatles' album cover 'Hard Day's Night', a Warhol print repeated 5 x 6 - multiples multiplied - Ultravox's 'punk' album - harder and more hard line than the eponymous debut - 'Ha Ha Ha' holds multiple contradictions  - pre-cursor to Factory Records inpenetrable shells of sleeves - the album cover is the same front and back - no track list, no personnel list - Island Records Maoist statement inside the rock capital mainstream - funny peculiar? No funny ha ha (ha)